


Red Admiral

by kaixo (ballpoint), The_Exile



Category: Tokyo Xanadu, Ys: Memories of Celceta
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 06:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16529216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/kaixo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: After a conversation with Eldeel that he doesn't remember the details of, Adol wakes up in a mysterious land of advanced technology, beset by demons he can't physically damage. The people who rescue him explain that he came to Morimiya through an Eclipse Gate. While they don't quite believe he is the real Adol Kristin, they agree to help him find a way back home. The search for a Gate of the same type leads him to meet, of all people, Dark Fact.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **The_Exile wrote the story, kaixo did the art.**

**Cover for the fic**  
  


**Fanmix**  
Spotify link [ For those who can't see the spotify playlink, a screencap of the playlist ](https://open.spotify.com/user/jazzypom/playlist/4ntkv94monGIVEEI5rINty?si=TCuSgymNT1uo4kin4rfo3A)


	2. chapter 1: castaway on the shoals

He was falling. That was the first thing he became aware of when he emerged from... wherever he had been. Not only was he falling, something close to him was roaring, bellowing with a voice that shook the ground of the stone tunnel he woke up in, together with the rumbling and clattering of what sounded like several legs moving very fast. Whatever was heading towards him, it was enormous and the momentum alone would crush him if it hit him, even if it didn't eat red-headed adventurers. Which, knowing his usual luck, it almost certainly did. He braced his legs and arms to land safely on the rough stone floor covered in what looked like minecart tracks, then quickly sprang upwards again, grabbing the nearest ledge, hoisting himself up and over the edge, rolling clear just as a pair of demonic glowing eyes careened into view. The dazzling yellow lights were followed by an almost endlessly long serpentine body with a gleaming armoured carapace. A blast of air from the sheer speed it was going at almost knocked Adol over again but he managed to spring fully to his feet, sword drawn, movements flowing easily into a combat stance.

To his relief, the thing was gone five seconds later, glaring at him with its rear... eyes?... but seemingly uninterested in such a small, fast meal when it could probably take its pick of any prey in its subterranean domain. Once his heart had stopped pounding from his near death experience – it didn't take long, he was used to them by now - he realised that logically it had to have been a machine or vehicle of some sort, maybe mining equipment? Romun probably had something like that by now. He'd seen battle tanks that advanced in a Romun invasion already, just as large and dangerous, Industry was the logical next step after the inevitable military application.

So, he was in Romun territory, then? Possibly in a mine? That didn't really narrow it down. The Empire was busily expanding everywhere they could possibly reach, taking the noise and pollution of heavy industry with them, but admittedly also the transport and trade links, the work and the money.  
If only that was all they got up to... Adol wasn't really surprised to be in Romun territory, not only because everywhere was Romun territory these days but also because if anyone was going to cause some kind of magical portal to accidentally appear, it was going to be either Adol himself or the Romuns. 

And there was always, always trouble to be found down a mine. Buried evil statues, cursed gems, sealed paleolithic dragons... no wonder at least one lost ancient civilisation he had come across simply banned excavation work altogether in an attempt to stop subsequent disasters. That only worked until you needed metals to... well, advance your civilisation in any meaningful way whatsoever, he supposed. 

Then he thought, since when did I become an expert on such matters? I've seen a lot of things, true, but I've mostly stabbed them in the face, seduced them or stolen them from crumbling temples. What do I really know of the world? It's Eldeel, that quiet, serene demigod in the lost forest, his influence has rubbed off on me, made me look towards higher goals, the wider scale of things....

What was the last thing he said to me before I disappeared? Something about... taking records. How important my notebooks really were. And he was showing me something, but then... was that when I disappeared?

What exactly had gone wrong this time?

With a near-immortal scholar who specialised in the kinds of magical experiments you needed to steer history in the correct direction, it could be a lot of things, all of them very bad. It would help if his head wasn't so foggy. Something in the forest was still interfering with his memory, unless they'd been doing something else that involved memory... or making records...

His hands went to his various belt pouches. While his backpack was missing, he had some of the things in his pouches, as well as his sword but no armour or shield, only his heavy leather tunic and hose with matching padded jerkin and long leather boots, all in his trademark fiery red. These days he kept his notebooks as close to him as his sword, so he was relieved to find their familiar bulk still there. 

He hoped they were up to date. They usually were, these days. A shiver ran down his spine as he opened the pouch and unfolded the leather and oilskin bundles he kept them safe inside, together with his maps. His experienced adventurer's instincts were telling him this place wasn't what it seemed. Mines were always bad news but this was different. Also, he was being watched by something that was almost certainly about to attack. 

He quickly replaced his maps and journals, unwilling to risk them in a fight. That wasn't before he glanced briefly at the last page he had written on. He couldn't help noticing it. It was glowing angry blood-red. The words on it, while clearly in his own script, were not in any language he was aware of ever having been able to understand. They could have been Roonic, if he had to guess. They were also scrawled frantically and not following any of the dimensions of the pages, never mind the lines, which a Roo was usually at the very least capable of. Roo script didn't usually glow red, either.

The same red as the jagged edges of the portal that was opening up in the middle of the chamber, filled with darkness that oozed as though from an open wound in reality. Other things were spilling, skittering and slithering out, too, things Adol didn't recognise but got the general idea of. Demons. 

Now this was a language he understood. Wishing he still had a nice Cleria sword but thankful to still have a perfectly serviceable steel one, he swung a vicious blow across the face of something vaguely ooze-like with sharp fangs and too many eyes that reached out a glistening ink-black pseudopod to grab him. 

His blade skittered off the creature without even the usual wet sucking noise of something slightly too gloopy to stab. It might as well have been a statue of polished obsidian, except that statues didn't usually bite him hard in the shoulder. Screaming from the pain – that thing was venomous - he kicked as hard as he could and threw himself backwards. His foot connected, enough to push it back at least, or to propel him away from it. 

There were several, now, and more were arriving through the portal, along with their fellows of other species. For all he knew, they could all be similarly invulnerable. He backed slowly away from them, trying to keep them all in sight while reaching for the healing potion that was hopefully still in his other pouch. He spotted exits but one was directly behind the creatures and the other two were either end of the tunnel he had seen the worm or machine or whatever it was pop out of. He immediately discarded the idea of trying his luck with the tunnels. Running past the monsters he could see, that was a lot more likely to happen. They were kind of slow, if inexorable, and they had to get out of that portal before they could go after him. Maybe if he just ran, dodged and jumped for it...

He darted back again as a cluster of surging spheres of dark light, crackling with powerful arcane energy, suddenly flew through the air. All of them slammed into a different monster, causing each to burst into a pyre of shadowy flames. One narrowly whizzed over Adol's head. Sweat broke on his forehead and he ducked behind a rather uncomfortable looking large metal bench while the young woman who had just ascended the stairs continued hurling balls of dark lightning at the swarm of monsters. Her companion - a tall, well-muscled young man with rough blonde hair who reminded Adol a little of Duren - leapt over the railings and brought an enormous two-handed sword over his head with a force that sent shockwaves across the ground, tearing apart the floor and the entire line of enemies before him. Clearly some kind of magically boosted martial art as well, surmised Adol - especially as that sword hadn't been there five seconds ago!

Skilled as they clearly were, they weren't any better than himself, and yet they were making short work of the monsters, who began to flee back through the portal. The only major difference he could see was that they had magical weapons. Monsters vulnerable only to magic weren't unknown to Adol. If these people were openly fighting these things down a mine with their arcane powers, it couldn't be that rare at the moment, so maybe he could persuade them to lend him one? They had seen him fight and, by the glances they were giving him as he desperately tried to at least defend himself against the few that still made a beeline for him, the other two combatants were aware of his skill. 

There was the slight problem – one that he very quickly became aware of – that he didn't share a language in common with either of them. He was normally good at picking up languages – it was a skill you used a lot when you so often ended up suddenly shipwrecked in places you've never heard of before - but the languages people normally spoke weren't usually this different to each other, especially now everyone was starting to agree that Romun was the language of commerce and was a good idea to learn. The language these two spoke... was recognisably human. That was the limit to what he could say about it. 

He could just about tell from their gestures, body language, facial expression and general tone of their yelling, that they couldn't give him a weapon, couldn't even lend him the ones they were carrying right now. The two of them even tried exchanging weapons between each other to show that it was impossible. Adol groaned – he had heard of magical weapons being this awkward before. The ore they were made out of was probably cursed. Everywhere he went was the same old story. One of these days he would find some sort of unifying theory...

He shook his head. Why was he thinking about things like 'unifying theories', and why in the middle of battle, of all times?

"Feena and Reah preserve me..." he sighed as he stood up and wiped monster goo off his tunic. The man whipped his head around and gave him an even more confused look, staring at him closely. 

One of the phrases he said, quite clearly, was 'Adol Kristin'. 

People have heard of me even in what feels like a completely new world. So, is my reputation preceding me at a ridiculous pace good or bad this time around? Am I about to be thrown in jail for a murder I couldn't logically have committed or hailed as the prophesied hero of somewhere I hadn't heard of until now?

The woman cuffed him around the head, barked an order, then leapt into the portal – seconds before it began to ripple and shrink, contracting into a ball of light. The man yelped in panic and lunged forwards, apparently trying to follow her but timing it a second too late. The portal now vanished altogether, the man almost fell flat on his face but managed to break his fall. He glanced around at Adol, who was still watching his movements in return.

The man let out another long stream of unintelligible gibberish that had Adol's name in it, then took a small metal shape like a glowing slate, a tiny monolith, which he waved at the adventurer. The blue light flared up brighter and Adol suddenly felt something fogging up inside his brain, warm and comforting and soporific...

He had felt it before...

"Oh no, not this time, you bastard," he muttered, lunging forward and punching the man squarely in the face. Caught by surprise at what apparently wasn't the expected reaction, the man reeled back as his jaw made a satisfying cracking noise, very different to the weird glassy invulnerability of the monsters. Pressing the advantage, Adol had grabbed the device from his hand and thrown it into the worm-machine tunnels before he could restrain the adventurer. 

Another of the machines thundered past...


	3. Chapter 2: memories of Eldeel / dragged to shore

"When you write a journal about something, anything," said Eldeel as Adol drank his tea with a lot more enthusiasm than the winged demigod's genteel sipping. The bloody things had annoyingly tiny handles for a normal human. He wasn't even sure how Dogi would hold one at all. Eldeel's fiercest raptor glare told him that this was important and he was forbidden from getting distracted by minutiae, "You are committing to it existing in the future, in the form you choose, long after its form is gone. Information about something, you see, is its existence, in its purest form, and there are ways of reconstructing it from this base. The medium of the recording, the language, none of this matters, although the longer lasting and the more widely recognised the better. The Akashic Records are the most extreme example of this. Another rather prominent example is, of course, the Books of Ys you were telling me about. And then there are the journals of a certain adventurer, who has gathered information on places, people, events far and wide that probably nobody else has ever heard of yet, meaning that he has essentially brought them into being for the first time."

"But it matters more if it's true, right? Otherwise I could just write anything and say it exists. And then someone'll find out, or worse, they won't, and they'll believe all sorts of crazy things..."

"Your conscience is why I bother talking to you, Adol. Yes, it matters a lot. Lies, especially deliberate lies for a certain malicious purpose, can create such havoc that they can even reach and corrupt the Akashic Record if what is lied about is important enough. Did you know, for instance, that the taint on the Magic of Ys, the thing that linked the Black Pearl to such a malign world of demons, was caused by someone – you can guess from which family - lying in a report written in the Book of Ys?"

"You've read them?" Adol frowned, "They're really that important?"

"Adol... Ys was one of the few direct offshoots of Eldeel, a satellite of the main continent orbiting the world below. The Books of Ys were handed directly in to be added to the Akashic Record, as footnotes for things that had happened differently to the plan, either through deliberate drastic change or... outside interference."

"I thought the Akashic Record..."

"Covered the entire world's fate, yes, but the places that could interfere... were from worlds far enough away, their laws of cause and effect too alien to our own, to be properly recorded."

"And that's what demons are?"

"In a way, yes. To even call them 'malign' is rather a simplification. Their rules are simply different, incompatible. By now they're not even from the same world. Or did you think Roos came from the same place as, say, Gelaldy?"

Adol shrugged, "Cockroaches come from the same place as puppies."

Eldeel smiled, "That's what I enjoy about talking to you, Adol, you have a mind sharp enough to understand what I'm saying but you have that oh so human way of putting things sometimes."

Adol finished his tea and Eldeel poured them some more. He had expected the man to show off something exotic but this was clearly Celcetan, green and bitter and refreshing. The distinctive scent of Roda leaves permeated its usual green tea aroma. That was a twist that had to be expensive, assuming Eldeel didn't just edit Roda leaves into existence from first principles.

"So, what exactly is my role in all of this? Because you clearly want something out of me and my journals. You're not adding them to the Akashic Record, are you? Because that's a lot of responsibility for a lone mortal to handle..."

"Technically, everything goes into the Akashic Record, although some things are filtered for quality and relevance more thoroughly than others," he said, "And you certainly wouldn't be the only person ever to have this responsibility. Actually, it is not dissimilar to the duties of a Priest of Ys, and they aren't truly gone. I don't even just mean the ones who were lucky enough to still have descendants interested in pursuing the work. You see, there is another function of the Books of Ys, a more, shall we say, direct interaction..."

* * *

"Wake up, Adol," the same hand shook him again, rather more vigorously than his still aching muscles appreciated. His wounds had been treated, he realised, but only the major injuries. The rest had been left to heal naturally, and still itched and stung like hell in what felt like a million places.

"Sod off, Dogi," he muttered, trying to turn over and pull the sheets over himself. The bedclothes were roughly yanked off him and he was dragged to a sitting position, a glass of water forced into his hands.

"No giving me lip," ordered the young woman now glaring at him.

"Sis, that's not how you treat injured people!"

"It works with bratty younger brothers. Gets them out of bed like a miracle cure."

"Sis, he's been fighting monsters, he's not pretending to have the flu!"

"So you admit you were pretending," she turned around, smiled sweetly and smacked him over the head with a tea tray.

"That's abuse," complained the boy, rubbing his head, "I'm telling the authorities."

"Tell them you're a truant and a hacker and a public nuisance while you're at it."

"I'm sorry about my sister," the boy told Adol, grinning, "You're probably confused as to why you can understand what we're saying now, right?"

"Oh... I'm still in the same place?" Adol scratched his head.

"I told you he'd just assume he was somewhere different!" called his sister.

"She's been like this ever since I let my guard down and was even slightly nice to her," the boy sighed, "I should go back to shunning her. It fixed her attitude up good and proper!"

"Tell the nice gentleman what on Earth's happening to him."

"Okay, Adol... you are the real Adol Kristin, right? You look exactly like him and all the machines says you're not from this world and not from a recognised Eclipse either."

"Unless something's gone very wrong, it's me," Adol ruffled his hair, "Can we just establish whether this is a good or a bad thing this time round?"

The boy laughed, "Oh, I've heard ALL the stories, good and bad!"

"You have no idea how much of it is true," his sister reminded him.

"If I wrote it, it's probably true," said Adol, swinging his legs around to sit on the side of the bed. He didn't like being tucked in bed. It felt restrictive, too much the opposite of searching for adventure, "Bad things happen when I lie, you see."

"Well, here we've got be a little discreet, people would think it's too weird for the real Adol Kristin to just jump out of the pages of the history books."

"Oh, I'm historical now?"

"I thought you were," the boy frowned.

"So I came forwards in time? I didn't think it was possible," Eldeel had said the future hasn't one hundred per cent been decided on yet, but he had also said, Adol remembered just in time, not to go telling just anyone about the secrets of the Universe.

"Well, we don't know how the Eclipse works, but we don't think time travel is possible, so you might be from another world where Adol is still alive now, or you might be a replayed memory of Adol or something."

"A replayed memory?" Adol frowned. Something was in the back of his mind, just out of reach, that was really bothering him. Something else Eldeel had told him.

"Yuuki, you don't know for sure Adol isn't still alive, there's never been a record of his death," his sister reminded him, "And if he's really done all those unrealistic things he says he has, then he can't be a normal human."

"Don't be rude!" he snapped, "Sorry about this, she's still sceptical it's really you."

"You said I'm still in the same place, with the mine, and the monsters, and the worm thing, and the magic weapons..." 

"That's a subway, not a mine. It's a means of transport, like a boat. The 'worm thing' was probably a train," explained Yuuki, "There's human passengers inside it."

"Going that fast? But it'd kill them! What if they fell out?"

"Adol, I hate to break it to you, but most people don't have as bad luck with transport as you," Yuuki sighed, "There's safety features on them but I still don't recommend you get on one, just in case."

"I'm not going in some cramped deathtrap," he agreed, "So how come you can understand me now?"

"I made a translation program! Isn't it neat?" his face lit up with a broad, childish, wide-eyed smile as he held up his light tablet thing. Words made of light scrolled along the mirror on the front.

"Oh, here we go," sighed Yuuki's sister.

"Nobody speaks your language on this planet any more, I'm afraid, but I have some samples from books and games and things, and Mitsuki and Asuka let me borrow their normal translation software, so I cobbled this together. It's the first of its kind!"

"So you're an inventor? A mage?" 

"Yup, that's me, a tech-wizard!"

"Yuuki..." his sister's tone went up sharply in warning.

"Wait, this is Roonic!"

"Um, yeah, it was the only surviving language," Yuuki blushed and scratched at the back of his head, "Did you know that the Roos even had typewriters and were developing a printing press?"

"Roo civilisation outdoing, or even outlasting, our own, surprises me not in the least," said Adol.

"Yuuki, it might not be the best idea to tell him his entire future if he really does turn out to be from the past."

"It's okay, I'm used to it," Adol sighed. Eldeel was very careful but he also lived in a tower in the middle of a forest where it was difficult to remember what had and hadn't happened yet, "Look, why don't you tell me what exactly just happened to me, with the monsters and the magic weapons? You seemed to know a lot about them. They are monsters and magic weapons, aren't they, and not a parcel delivery service or something that everyone is just casual about these days?"

Yuuki shook his head, "Actually, it's another thing that's so weird we have to keep it a secret from the rest of the world so we don't cause a panic."

"As opposed to the panic of meeting one of those things in a dark tunnel and not knowing what in Feena's name it is?"

"Yeah, I know," Yuuki sighed, "You should try explaining it happening during rush hour. We're lucky that most people can't see the portals or monsters. They don't come after people that often, either. Sometimes someone's sensitive to them or gets attacked by them in a way they can't explain and we have to decide whether we can recruit them or we need to wipe their memory."

"Is that what the big guy tried to do to me – wipe my memory?"

Yuuki grinned,"Yeah, well done on nearly decking Shio with one punch, by the way! That's how I knew you were the real Adol."

"His fighting style impressed me too, and he can, you know, actually damage the enemy."

"I'm surprised you can't, but I guess you can't know how to do everything when you've only just come to this place," Yuuki said, "We can't just hand out soul weapons, we don't even control how they get given out or even understand where they come from, but we've made a few prototypes I'm sure I can get hold of for you. If Gorou won't agree, I bet Mitsuki or Asuka can pull a few strings!"

"It'd be nice to see you have all your friends around again, even if you are all up to something incredibly dodgy," Yuuki's sister appeared from the kitchen holding a tray with a tea set and three bowls of what looked like a noodle, pikkard and vegetable stew, and a delicious-smelling one at that. Adol thanked her and began to eat, following their example of moving to sit at a table that was low to the ground. Most table manners seemed to be easy to learn from watching Yuuki doing them wrong and being yelled at for it. They talked more as they ate, Yuuki mostly with his mouth full as he ate far too fast, to his sister's eternal exasperation. Yuuki told him more about the Eclipse, the Greed and the disasters that plagued the district of Morimiya, the second of which they had all fought in a team to prevent from ruining the area and possibly spreading even wider. They had all been students, he explained, when they all became involved in ways that they couldn't take back, especially when they spontaneously manifested Soul Weapons. This happened under extreme stress, the sort of negative emotions that the Greed were often attracted towards in the first place, and shows of determination and willpower tended to trigger the Soul Weapons, which was what surprised Yuuki about Adol, well known for his determination and spirit, did not manifest one.

"Well, you can only really be determined to do something if you've a clue what's going on," said Adol, "It's important to show spirit when you're fighting for your life, I suppose, but that's hard too when you don't know how, because suddenly nothing works. There was an exit, anyway, so I was going to retreat."

"So it's more like the cold fire of an expert swordsman's calculations?  
That's so cool!" Yuuki's voice had grown more high pitched. Adol suppressed a shudder. It was like talking to Tarf, except less pleasant with fewer social skills. 

"None of this explains what I'm doing here," Adol reminded him.

"Oh... uh... I have literally no idea," he let out a nervous laugh, "The machines weren't getting any interesting readings before your arrival, only that there was a fairly strong Gate. It's not the first time a person has come out of an Eclipse Gate but they're usually something more like a very intelligent humanoid Greed. You really do just register as a normal person."

"There's a first for me."

"To tell the truth, though, I'm not the best person to ask about that sort of thing. My thing is computers, maybe other machines at a push. Mitsuki and Asuka, they know their stuff about Greed and the Eclipse. I'm trying to get them on the phone but they're all still busy cleaning up after the actual Eclipse, except Shio, who's seeing to his broken nose."

A 'phone' was like the large enchanted conchs that the people of Ys used to communicate with one another, except it also stored a lot of other magic such as the memory wiping facility and the ability to search for and open Eclipse gates. Normal phones didn't do those other things, although they could create perfect instant portraits of you, as Yuuki demonstrated. Adol was taught a lot about this strange, advanced world that Yuuki deemed interesting and his sister deemed safe to tell him. For instance, Morimiya was part of an unimaginably huge city that was itself only one settlement in a country that spanned an entire island, that had trade routes with an entire world. Pikkards were called pigs. The strange phenomenon known as 'Mishy' existed as a concept here too although it was considered fictional.

After a brief discussion on the topic of 'Idol Bands' in general and 'SPICA' in particular, the 'phone' began to vibrate and make noises, and after briefly running his hands over it in some arcane ritual, Yuuki announced that his friends were on their way and wouldn't be long. His sister disappeared to make more tea and some snacks for everyone. A short while passed, then the doorbell rang. Yuuki invited in a small group, including the two that Adol had met beforehand - introduced to him as Shio and Mitsuki - as well as a serious-faced blonde girl called Asuka, a small but lithe girl called Sora, a man called Gorou who was the first adult he had met so far, and a girl called Rion who Yuuki explained was, indeed, one of the famous 'SPICA'.

"Oh, do go on, blab my secrets to every cosplay-obsessed fanboy you meet!" the pink-haired girl glared at him. Adol received an even more venomous death glare when he couldn't stop himself staring at her. She had wings, though, pure white feathered wings. Adol felt a pang in his heart as he remembered the two Goddesses he would probably never see again.

"He appeared out of nowhere at the same time as an Eclipse, he speaks Roonic, he has no idea where he is, he fights like a demon, we have no reason to believe he isn't the real Adol."

"What, just popped forwards in time to say hi?"

"We went over that already," Adol sighed, looking at Mitsuki, "You saw me fight, at least, and I've been told you have weapons. I don't suppose you can lend me a good blade that can cut those things?"

"I only just met you, and you assaulted my partner," the young woman pointed out. Her immaculate long blue hair and dangerous, perfectly in control beauty reminded him once again of the Goddesses, "You're going to turn around and ask me to arm you?"

"You need allies. You're still just students."

"Um... you did remember to tell him there's two corporations, an army and a Church involved in this as well, right?" Gorou folded his arms and frowned at Yuuki, who laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head again.

"He's got a point, though, he fights like Kou's grandad," continued Gorou – this was apparently a good thing, "He'd make a much better ally than an enemy it's too late to wipe the memories of, either running around with major delusions or with forbidden knowledge of another time period. Sooner or later we're going to have to find out where he belongs and put him back before he damages something. It'll be hard to do that without his help."

"I'm cool with being punched, anyway, I probably deserve it. I'm not sure we should just be screwing with people's memories when this still affects half of Morimiya," said Shio.

"Um... what if this person is... you know... like Shiori?" asked Sora.

"He's not. The thing pretending to be Shiori felt like a very powerful Greed. This man really does just register as a psychically powerful, but essentially ordinary, human being," said Asuka.

"Look, I am not lying, okay? Or pretending, or dressing as Adol for fun," the swordsman glared at them, "I've... had issues with lying. And I need to know something important, something that might explain this whole thing. Have you had issues to do with the Greed appearing in a situation to do with dishonesty about something important?"


	4. chapter 3: bare your soul

"So you're saying that the actual souls of the priests are inside the Books right now?"

"A recording of a person's existence, a complete description of what it means to be them, is the definition of a 'soul' in many cultures, yes," Eldeel mused, "Although the 'soul' is usually recorded in the afterlife, or when a Guardian of the Dead judges one's crimes too harsh, erased from existence altogether. The Priests of Ys, when they were forced to communicate with the world outside the Temple for the first time, became particularly worried about personal continuity at a base level, or, you could say, the immortality of the soul."

"But what if..."

"What if the book gets tea spilled on it, yes?"

"Or if someone reads it and changes it."

"Trust me, powerful wizards do not ruin spellbooks by spilling tea on them. Magical wards, shifting into several dimensions at once, good strong binding, a secure and dust-proof store-room with ferocious magical guardians... And that's before we get to all the backup copies, both physical spare records, the copy sent back to the Akashic Records every year, a good amount of it remembered off by heart and even put to memetic songs..."

"So, what happens if one copy is updated and another is a bit late because it's being sent back to the Akashic Records, or, I don't know, Gemma needs it and Tovah is using it, or Fact just clean forgets one day?"

"Now that would be unfortunate. Unlikely, given that we're talking about the most revered sages in the history of all human civilisation, and also they could communicate instantaneously through the shared areas of the records once they were completely ensconced in this spiritual network."

"They put their souls in books while they were still alive?"

"It's a difficult process once you're dead. And they can't stave off death, even with this, already the most powerful of their magic. Technically, they were dead after it was finished, in so far that their souls had completely left their bodies and couldn't return."

"Doesn't sound fun, to live in a book."

"They probably experience it more as living in the words, or more accurately, the concepts conveyed by the words. I've only spoken to one person who managed it while retaining any ability to communicate with the outside world and they told me it's peaceful, a final surrender to something much vaster than yourself. You do not even leave your sense, they simply become different, like someone looking in from the outside of one's reality and seeing in all directions at once... like looking at oneself on a map, you might say," Eldeel looked almost wistful as he stared into the swirling tea in his cup, leading Adol to wonder if this was something he was planning for himself, maybe even what he was intending with that last disastrous interaction with the Akashic Records. Something he desired so strongly that his dark and light sides agreed on it with the same passion...

"Of course," continued Eldeel, "Paradoxically, you have probably spoken to a lot more of these individuals in your brief lifetime."

"The voices I heard when I returned the books to the statues."

"Statues, yes. I have my suspicions, you know, the Priests of Ys were obsessed with the idea of perfect preservation, and petrification was not a magic restricted only to the dark path in those days..."

Adol shuddered, the idea of someone doing that to themselves repulsive. True, they probably weren't in the bodies at that point, and he guessed that the natural urge to move, to travel, probably worked differently when your senses changed into this form 'like looking at yourself on a map', and maybe there was truth in the accusation that his wanderlust was rather exaggerated compared to a normal, healthy human being... Still, the thought made his skin crawl. 

His next thought made him feel worse.

"Did... did Dark Fact know about this?"

"Of that I'm uncertain. While I know for a fact, pardon my pun, that he has used the Mask of the Sun at least once, and is at least aware of the existence of the Records, I've never met the man and cannot begin to fathom his overall plan, how much he was aware of and could make use of in the Books, the Records or anything else of the old technology of Eldeen and Ys. All I know is that he failed - because, against all odds, a swordsman received the blessings of the Goddesses and became powerful enough to defeat him."

"He was carrying the Book of Fact with him. If he knew he could store his soul in there..."

"The network would probably kick him out again, likely his own branch of it. Besides, even if his soul is in there somewhere, it clearly hasn't won him a victory here, or we'd know by how unpleasant it was for everyone."

"As opposed to all the unpleasantness that's still in the world anyway," Adol pointed out.

"Indeed, which is why we still need a torch-bearer and a trailblazer. Adol, I can't grant you the same functional immortality that the Priests achieved. It would leave you unable to fulfil your destiny, leading to catastrophic backlash everywhere, even if I was powerful enough to ascend a person and it would ever let me do so to you. And," he added before Adol had even opened his mouth, "It would be a terrible thing to do to you, for one reason: I could not let you take Dogi with you."

"He'd wall-crush his way through the whole system and drag me out again!"

"Yes, he probably would, and I have no idea how one would repair such a network, so I propose a longer way round to do this, with smaller nodes but over a large area. It should ensure you are anchored to destiny, that nothing horrible happens to your soul, despite the sort of thing you keep getting yourself into - BUT - you absolutely must always, ALWAYS fully and ACCURATELY record your adventures. Do you understand? In fact, I suggest obtaining a Roo-made typewriter..."

* * *

"I'm sorry about what happened to Kou's sister," said Adol, frowning. Truth be told, it was difficult to empathise with someone who you'd just met on a world very different to your own when you weren't great at making any long lasting connections to people on a good day. He was trying to imagine it was Dogi. Could he trust himself not to make the exact same mistake?

"We've not had a report of anything like that happening again," said Mitsuki, "The child we told you about – Rem – scans as a similar thing, but not hostile, and as I told you, we sometimes see signs of another apparition, also a child... never an actual person we know, though."

"So I'm definitely not one of those. That's good to know," Adol admitted, shuddering again. To be a lie yourself, when everyone seemed to count on you to keep history together...

"It isn't the only way the Eclipse can use a lie to distort the world, push Greeds further in. And any other strong negative emotions, too. We don't even know if this was definitely caused by you, and you haven't been swept up in something that's nothing to do with you."

"Like a shipwreck in time and space? Sounds like me," Adol admitted, yawning and stretching.

"I've had a call from Kou's grandfather and he can definitely arrange for you to borrow a sanctified practice sword, if you meet him at the shrine. It's still just a wooden sword but you can at least damage a Greed with one."

"Adol can totally kick butt with a wooden sword," Yuuki grinned.

"It's better than nothing," agreed Adol, "And I can go hunting with you once I have the weapon, yes? No more trying to mess around with my memory or making me go through any more vows of secrecy? Because we're wasting time when we should be going out and doing something about it."

"I like the way this guy thinks," said Shio.

"Well, you boys will just have to wait until we actually know where we're going and what we're doing before you can go out to play," said Asuka.

Yuuki's reaction to this was unrepeatable.

* * *

Around the same time that Adol made it to the shrine and received his replacement weapon – this took a while as Yuuki insisted on taking him on a tour around all the 'important' shops he could possibly justify as being on the way - Mitsuki received a call from Towa, another of their teachers who was apparently a computer expert even compared to Yuuki. Only barely understanding what a computer was, Adol's only thoughts on the matter were that Eldeel would love to get his hands on one, assuming, of course, that he didn't already know everything about them and was just waiting until some way existed to power one, which sounded like a complicated procedure, came into existence. Anyway, one of their many functions was apparently to track down Eclipse gates if they were linked together in large enough numbers to map out the entire district.

"There's been another one spotted, rather a large and dangerous one at that, with a very similar make-up to the one you probably came out of," said Mitsuki, "Strangely, it's not all that close to the station. They usually stick to the same kind of places – it's as though they literally overlap our world - but this one is moving."

"Maybe it really is a ship in the other world?" Adol shrugged. He had been practising with his wooden sword when Mitsuki arrived again. If anything, it was easier to use, suiting the fast, darting strikes of his fighting style, although it had virtually no power behind it compared to a real blade. He could sense the silvery blue strands of divine magic streaming from the blessed wood, not dissimilar to watching Feena's hair blow in the wind... Adol had learned quite quickly not to get distracted in battle by thoughts of the many women who clouded his mind these days, all blurring into one (although a certain rugged blue-haired thief had stolen more of his wits). He had been mooning over Lilia again when Kou's grandfather casually walked up and thrashed him half to death with his own wooden sword, declaring that he didn't for one minute believe this 'legendary swordsman' bullshit and that Adol needed another fifty years' experience before he would be taken seriously. That was about when Adol decided that Kou had some demon in him from his grandfather's side.

"You know, there could be something in that. It does closely follow the public transport route," said Mitsuki, "A gate on the metro... that's a first for the books!"

"Are we going to catch the unsafe-looking train?" asked Adol, frowning.

"That might not be a good idea. We can take the bus... actually, no, we'll be safer walking it," she declared, "It's a little ways off but not unreasonable walking distance. Gorou enjoys hiking, by the way, you should talk to him about some appropriate clothing."

"Can I at least rest for a few minutes before we set off again?"

"You acted overconfident in front of the old man, didn't you?" she sighed, "Ask him very politely for some of his green tea. It's the closest thing we have to healing magic in our world.

* * *

Adol did as he was recommended and after a kettle full of the green tea, he did feel refreshed, even more so than before his beating. Gorou joined them for tea and Adol spoke to him about practical travel gear. His own clothes didn't look too out of place, only a little old-fashioned, a look he could pass off as deliberately traditional. However, gear existed these days that was a lot better technically designed, shoes he could walk much further in, clothes he would be more flexible in.

"And if I can pull the right strings," said Gorou, "I might be able to get you some combat armour like mine. They'll probably say no to weapons, what with you being a foreigner with no ID, never mind a license for any kind of weapon."

"Surely there are extenuating circumstances," Kou's grandfather smiled. Gorou gave him a suspicious look.

"Well, the official channels wouldn't buy it, although I do hear that the Yakuza sometimes obtain Eclipse-effective weaponry from some black market I know nothing about, and I definitely wouldn't know about it if one of my friends happened to have Yakuza contacts..."

"Look, this sounds like it's going to take ages, and I want to set off right now, if that's okay," said Adol, "For all I know, these gates disappear for good after a certain amount of time or something."

"If you're sure you're ready for what you'll find in there. I'm up for another round of sparring..."

"I definitely think it's time to go," said Adol, almost spilling the remaining tea in his cup as he uncrossed his legs and nearly bolted upright, eyes flitting to the door. The old man cackled at him as he left.


	5. Chapter 4: Shop of Curiosities

Adol and Gorou agreed that the distance they had walked wasn't that far at all. Neither of them had even broken a sweat by the time they reached the outer suburbs of Morimiya and the small but wealthy-looking antique shop that dominated the landscape of the winding, narrow, touristic side street.

"Kids these days don't walk places often enough," remarked the teacher, "They zip around too fast, don't take in the scenery."

Adol didn't want to comment, as the man kept pointing an assault rifle at him, but Gorou didn't actually look all that old himself. Adol wasn't one to talk anyway, having barely aged in appearance over the ten years he'd been adventuring now. When you regularly conversed with immortal Goddesses, near-immortal custodians of the world's destiny, centuries old disembodied priests and, once, that scary old lady who had been an arena champion, Adol just didn't consider himself all that old. Gorou couldn't have been that much older. 

"The trouble is," he finally commented, "Kids are expected to start being heroes from such a young age. "

"You tell me. I wish they'd at least get school out of the way first," the teacher grunted. Then he sighed, "Fachmann again. I should have suspected so."

"That shop?" asked Adol, looking up at the old-style hanging wooden sign, swinging from a right angle to the door of the antique shop. Sieghart Fachmann, Antiquarian Books and Silverware, Proprietor, By Appointment Only. The script of the silver writing on the mahogany looked elegant but not too flamboyant. The windows were tinted dark, with equally dark curtains.

"That shop's been somewhere in the radius of at least one call-out every week for the last six months. Who the hell just goes overseas and sets up a small business in this day and age? Why is he doing so well even though there's no contact details and he's never open? It's got to be shady but hell if any of us can get any information on it."

"And you've never just gone in there?"

"Oh, plenty of times. It doesn't look it, but its open right now. The problem is, it really does just seem to sell silverware and books. Not that books can't be a pain in the ass," Gorou said, "Did I tell you about the cursed book in the school library?"

"I told you we checked for that possibility already," said Mitsuki, finally caught up with the two of them. Shio and Sora followed closely by her side. Rather sensibly, in Adol's opinion, they were trained to fight in groups of three, "We went over every book."

"An antiquarian bookseller gets in new books all the time."

"And they all have at least one Eclipse portal in them?" she shook her head, "We've checked again this week but you can double check if you want. We're going to have to go in there anyway – its the strongest reading in the area this time!"

* * *

The silver handle turned. After a rap of the door knocker in the shape of a leering silver gargoyle produced no response, Shio pushed the heavy wooden door and it opened without resistance. Adol's worries that it wasn't officially open and that they would meet with some kind of fiendish security system if they trespassed unannounced, as was usually the case with him, were soon rendered completely irrelevant. Taken over entirely by the Eclipse, the shop no longer resembled its original design or function, or anything possible on Earth. Easily five times the size that should have fit into the small building, the entrance resembled the hall of some grand Cathedral, with winding staircases, rich black velvet drapes with silver filigree, designs embroidered on them that Adol dimly recognised, winged statues of blue-black stone, some of them looking a lot more profane than sacred. The floors were chequered with black and white tiles.

A dark miasma hung over everything, a purple tinge to a light that seemed to be draining away whenever he saw something flitting in the corner of his eye, a pair of red eyes malevolently winking at him. The angles to everything seemed slightly off, the stairs too large for humans, the corridors impossibly long, the angles of what corners he could see at strange twisting dimensions. Adol's magical senses weren't terribly developed, mostly just experience from things he had picked up a long the way, and this stank of evil enchantments. Something in between the howling of the wind and the low doleful notes of a pipe organ in strange slow motion was drifting through the corridors. Instinct made Adol start humming a song he had heard Reah play on the harmonica back when he thought she was genuinely just a pretty troubadour girl – partly to drown out a noise he knew would be harmful to his very soul, partly because he still missed them so much. He hadn't realised how much he instinctively reached out to think about them until he found himself this far away from everything he knew. 

Rion had started to hum along with him, her voice a lot more pleasant than hers. Apparently the tune was rather contagious. Another beautiful winged girl who could sing like an angel... Rion cleared her throat and blushed as she realised what she had done, pulling away from his gaze as though his red hair really could burn her as rumoured.

"It's as bad as it looks in here. The readings are all off the charts. We have about ten seconds until..." began Mitsuki. Then the demons known as the Greed were upon them.

As promised, Adol's sword really worked this time. In fact, the holy aspect of it seemed to be compensating for the fact that it was only a wooden sword. Divine light immediately shot up the blade, seemingly pulsing and rippling in time to the song he hummed. Rion had started openly singing it now, somehow realising it was having an effect. When his blows connected with the enemy - and the blade was even lighter and faster than it had been, practically insubstantial, until it was no different to swinging his arms - the light cut cleanly through the fiends, slicing off limbs or through their very cores, eradicating them back into the flashes of darkness and motes of light that were their true substance - lies, he thought, tricks of the light...

They admitted afterwards that he wasn't supposed to be able to do that with the blade, that it was new. When Adol had suggested it was divine intervention, they warned him that their only experience with things claiming to be divine beings in the eclipse had been very, very bad. There had only ever been one encounter with something that genuinely seemed benevolent and pure was that one conversation with what appeared to be the town's guardian fox spirit, and it had still attacked them. An actual beneficial force in the Eclipse... the closest thing was Rem, and that was debatable. What had happened to Adol was completely new.

They fought through unrelenting waves of fiends until Adol thought he was going to drop from exhaustion, dropping back into the instinct, the perfect timing and precision of that other place, deep in the heart of the moment, that he went to when he was channelling his fighting spirit, the trance that had sometimes gotten him mistaken for a demon. He had already seen Shio and Mitsuki in battle but the others were no slouches either. Rion's steel wings were weapons she had been trained to fight with, their energy field tipped razor edges whirling around at lethal speeds, sometimes even fast enough to create cutting blasts of wind. Sora fought with gauntlets that reminded Adol of a small, angry Dogi, Asuka with a blade of her own, Yuuki with some kind of enchanted floating spheres and a hammer that looked too big for him to lift, Gorou with a weapon that looked ridiculously complicated. As ever, they split into teams of three, Rion and Yuuki assigned to his side. Adol wasn't used to fighting in small groups, not compared to his usual solitary battles, and it was at times like this that he really started to see the value of allies, even when they bickered at each other, one of them stopped to check their phone every five seconds and the other to fix their hair. By the end of it all, they had all survived to regroup at the foot of the winding tower that it had turned into.

Not quite Darm Tower, but the similarities couldn't be a coincidence any more. The decor, the silver and shadows and books, the tall, winding structure, the evil wind and faint notes of soul-draining music... Adol wondered if there was a portal somewhere that opened up into Darm Tower - not that Darm Tower needed to be made any more creepy and demonic than it usually was - or if this was all pulled from his memories. His journey to Esteria was an adventure he was never likely to forget, what with all the important friends he had met there, as well as all the horrors that still haunted him.

The highest point of the Tower could have been a twin to Dark fact's chamber, with the dais of chequered black and white marble, the precipitous drop below it, where newly created stardust swirled from the sheer amount of raw primal power channelled into... whatever the fallen Priest had been doing.

On a lectern in the middle of this dais was a book, bound in black leather and fastened in silver chains. 

"That's the source of the anomaly," said Mitsuki.

"Told you it was a book again," said Gorou.

"Not just any book," Adol whispered, "That's Codex Fact. What in Feena's name...?"

"It's not a real book at all," warned Mitsuki, "It never is, and it'll try to fool you into letting your guard down, screw your mind up entirely. It's just another way into the Eclipse, whatever it used to be. It's going to be well guarded, so make sure you all..."

"No, you don't understand, that's Codex Fact all right. And it's not... where the evil is coming from," Adol assured her. The dark, roaring pressure was beginning to overwhelm him, as though he were drowning in black ink from a pen that was trying to rewrite his soul.

"He's telling the truth," said Asuka, "Zoom in a little. It's not the book. It's very close, and it's... moving... getting closer... and bigger..."

"Crap, RUN!" roared Gorou, diving for the stairs back to the lower levels. They all followed the teacher. All except Adol. 

He was transfixed. Not through fear or morbid fascination, or through headstrong overconfidence - he simply couldn't move. It was like this was a fate attracted to him as he was attracted to it. A part of his fate, his doom, that was always there, could not be denied.

A timetable he simply had to keep to...

The lights grew brighter, the roaring, the terrible clanging bells, as though he was the Campanile's next sacrifice. The shadow so huge now, moving so fast, it would engulf him, devour his soul.

He would be lost forever this time, adrift on a current there was no going back from...

Then, just as the thing's hot oily breath was upon him, the shock waves around it almost knocking him over as it parted the winds and rocked the ground beneath it, he was flying in another direction, something else having snatched him and flung him out of the way. For a moment he drifted lazily through the sky – the thing was controlling his movement still, slowing his fall and making sure he landed safely, Darkness whirled past him, a glorious darkness full of all the majestic stars of the cosmos. The thing circled the dais and its altar below, its patterns like the graceful but deadly dance of a gliding hawk. Then he was on the floor, limbs still paralysed, shaking, barely able to gasp for breath.

The shadows flurried above him for a few seconds, then resolved into a tall humanoid figure.

The giant demonic train screamed past them, its bell clanging one last time, then it was gone, vanishing back into the shadows it appeared from.

"No, you're not the one who can defeat that thing," a voice warned him, a precise, arrogant voice with a hard, merciless edge to it. Adol recognised it instantly: this was unmistakeably the real Dark Fact. It made no sense that he had his robe back, or his book, which he took from the altar and cradled under one arm.

"You never are, though, are you?" he mused, "The actual chosen one. Just a wandered who happened to pass by, every single time. And you always walk in without the means to do whatever you're trying to achieve. You always end up obtaining it, though. And you've survived things you know well you shouldn't. Why is that, I wonder? Could it really be divine intervention, the true power of those Goddesses?"

"Why..." Adol croaked, his throat raw, his voice still shaking.

"Why did I save you? Because this is my dream and I decide who gets hit by trains. I want you out, Adol, not dead. You come back from death. I've seen your abandoned grave site, dug up, your memories retrieved. The only way to be in a destiny I can actually fulfil is to be in one where you're not there at all."

"... Is that a pin stripe suit?"

"And a rather fetching theatre cape. Silver thread lined, of course. And a silver tipped cane to make everyone think I'm trying even harder to look like a vampire," he sighed, "I'm rather enjoying myself, but I didn't actually choose this dream. I have no idea what is happening, I think I made a serious mistake somewhere."

"You didn't happen to lie, did you?" Adol finally found it in him to speak.

"It all depends. What's a lie? Is an omission of the truth, an answer that is technically correct but designed to be interpreted in the wrong way, a simple refusal to tell anyone the answers they ask for, really a lie? And who has the final authority to say what is correct and what is false, and what must I do to obtain some of their power?"

"I thought so. This was never just about the Black Pearl or Darm or whatever, was it? You know what those books really are."

"And so do you."

"How do you know what I do overseas, though? The other Priests didn't know..."

"This isn't THAT Book of Fact, Adol, and it's not in the shrine, so don't bother tearing apart Ys looking for it."

"A backup copy that got lost somewhere in the paperwork..."

"Devils, no, that would be far too dangerous! I'm writing my own."

"Why Sieghart?"

"My real name's Siegue. Didn't anyone tell you? Mothers don't call their sons Dark, not even Fact mothers."

"Siegue..."

"Yes?"

"So, was I thinking about you so much that I came here or did you summon me in your thoughts? Because I have it on good authority that this is how these things always work with the Eclipse."

"And you don't think that fate's permanent shipwrecked castaway, who can't even tread the beaten path of destiny for even five seconds without chasing a pretty butterfly into the wilderness, might have different rules applying to him."

"I'm saying that one or the other or both of us might be the pretty butterflies."

"Adol..."

"Yes?"

"Once you get entangled in someone's destiny, you're stuck there. Your bond with them doesn't go away once you're gone, no matter how far away you try to run. You do understand this, yes?"

"I'm counting on it, with some of the people I have to leave behind."

"Adol..."

"What now?"

"An Eclipse realm doesn't follow some of the rules of the outside world. Nothing here is quite real or permanent, but it does mean there are things you can get away with, things that just wouldn't make sense, work out, be right in the outside world. You could say it has its own private library."

"What do you want, Siegue Fact?"

"What do YOU want, Adol Christin?"


	6. Epilogue: Au Revoir

The mission was declared a partial success.

The Gate closed shortly after discharging them all safely outside the now closed shop. No, not just closed, it was boarded up, its paint crumbling, as though it had never been renovated by its mysterious foreign benefactor. A homeless person huddled in a sleeping bag on the stairs. The whole street looked kind of run down, as though it had lost its almost fey mystique. The party hadn't even tried to defeat the Greed. The energy involved wasn't even registering as that of a real creature any more – it was on the scale of an entire Eclipse in itself. In fact, they had no idea conceptually how to attack it.

Gorou promised to come back with much heavier reinforcements if the same gate ever reappeared. Adol shook his head and warned them that the thing probably wouldn't be in the same spot again.

The next time it appeared, Adol led the search party. It wasn't really a search - the gate opened in the middle of the shrine, where Adol had been praying, meditating and fighting. He was reaching a level of skill with a sword where Kou's grandfather at least didn't spend the whole time laughing at him. He had also finished Star Trader and Faxanadu, taught Rion the entire song properly and been shown how to make good coffee between attempts to find a way home. 

The next time he found the train, it slowed down and the doors opened for him. The rest of the party waved goodbye to him before the doors closed and the train left the station. 

He never told any of them what transpired between himself and Dark Fact in the fallen priest's shadowy lair. It was as between them as anything could be, a realm created for them to meet each other a second time. He didn't tell Eldeel, although a while later he did confess that he had been to a strange world called Morimiya and had some interesting adventures, that the fabric of the fabric of the Akashic Records might still not be as secure, correctly functioning or even as honest as the immortal scholar had once thought. He didn't even tell Dogi. Siegue Fact had been right that there were some truths best at least avoiding, in order not to break anyone's heart. Dogi didn't mind him going off with girls or the occasional pretty boy as long as he always returned, as long as Dogi always meant the most, but there were limits even to the patience and tolerance of a relaxed guy like Dogi.

He didn't write it in his journal either, aware as he was that Dogi was always sneaking a peek at it. 

Not in that journal, anyway.

There was another journal, now, still resting on a dais next to a tome of black and silver.


End file.
